10 replies to this topic

[TheSaltire]

I caught an article in The Indianapolis Star about NASCAR drivers growing demands for a travelling safety team....like every other major series has....thanks to Dr. Sid Watkins and the F1 folks who learned this lesson a long time ago.

Here's a quote from the article :

"We make rules; we run races. We're not in the medical care business. We'd have to have a dozen safety teams. Anyone who's a member is going to rightly feel that he is entitled to the same kind of care as anyone else." - NASCAR vice president Jim Hunter

HELLLLLLLOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!! You have to be joking. With the hundreds of millions of $$$s flowing into NASCAR the safety of the drivers is your job. NASCAR's continual reactive...not proactive...stance will be its undoing.

Dale Earnhardt's death brough some changes...but not much when you think about it. I compare all of this to the safety changes in F1 during the 1980s and the massive changes when Senna was killed in 1994. F1 woke up to the fact that no one....especially sponsors....want to see drivers dying. It's not macho...it's just bad for business.

Something tells me that the good old boy attitude of NASCAR and it's thrifty ways will only cost them a lot more in the end.

[ehagar]

It is the one area where I think Nascar is lacking. It makes me mad when I hear a driver shrill about how safe the sport is when they race back to the line. That has got to go. But apparently, Formula One is no better, as Fernando Alonso seemed to prove at Brazil.

Or what about the 'advisory' yellows on road courses as they race back to the line? Or the non engineering solutions to add another bar to the roll cage, increasing the stiffness of the chassis, thereby possibly transmitting more force to the driver. What about the Humpy (sp?) bumper... good idea, why not institute it? Was it because it was a Humpy Wheeler solution and not a Nascar solution.

Or some idiot trundelling around in a damaged car in 40th place trying to get to 39th place because they can get 5 more points.

Then there is the medical team issue...

I realize that they are trying to keep true to there roots, but Nascar has grown into an American league major sport. It is time they started to make the safety element of their sport more.... professional.

I wish I saw all of Jeff Gordon's interview on Wind tunnel last night... I think they talked briefly about it.

[Megatron]

NASCAR is very slow, almost still, when dealing with anything modern. It took the death of their biggest driver to get them to even look at their silly saftey rules (or lack of). They won't have a saftey team because they don't want to spend the $$$ and are afriad of being liable should someone get killed in their hands.

In other NASCAR news:

NASCAR discoveries hot substance called fire, drivers advised not to touch


New mysterious system called fuel injection found, not likely to be approved.

[John B]

I don't at all dispute the need for such a team, but my guess is nothing's happened on that front because there hasn't been a obvious and demonstrated need for it at an accident when someone was actually injured that I can think of (please correct me if wrong -- the one I can think of was Kyle Petty being hurt when on a stretcher when they ran over his ponytail......). The fatalities in recent years seemed instant and beyond the abilities of any rescue effort. If someone got stuck in a car in a dangerous situation or was injured by being yanked out the wrong way due to an incompetent squad, I think a change would be made very quickly -- such changes always seem to happen reactively in racing, often after a fatality

[Newtsche]

Originally posted by ehagar
I wish I saw all of Jeff Gordon's interview on Wind tunnel last night... I think they talked briefly about it.

I saw the show and don't remember any particular discussion. Considering Gordon's righteous anger at the lack of medical service at Watkins Glen, a bit surprising.

It's kinda funny, safety approaches in two American series, NASCAR and CART, one with a history of minimal concern, the other at the cutting edge -- state of the art medical team, less exposed drivers, HANS....

[John B]

With the greater amount of ovals in the old days, including tracks like Atlanta and bumpy Pocono, CART got real good at the safety drill in the early to mid 1980s. They used to have drivers injured on a weekly basis, especially with broken legs. Looking at the short nose of the 1983 March, not really a surprise.....I remember some of the superspeedway races, especially at Michigan, when every 10 minutes it seemed the trucks were racing to the scene of what looked like an airplane crash.

[TedN]

Using "safety" and "NASCAR" in the same sentence is an oxymoron, no?

Ted

[Mr. Stay Puff]

Originally posted by John B
I don't at all dispute the need for such a team, but my guess is nothing's happened on that front because there hasn't been a obvious and demonstrated need for it at an accident when someone was actually injured that I can think of (please correct me if wrong -- the one I can think of was Kyle Petty being hurt when on a stretcher when they ran over his ponytail......). The fatalities in recent years seemed instant and beyond the abilities of any rescue effort. If someone got stuck in a car in a dangerous situation or was injured by being yanked out the wrong way due to an incompetent squad, I think a change would be made very quickly -- such changes always seem to happen reactively in racing, often after a fatality

Sadly, NASCAR wont see a need for such a rescue crew until a driver has burned to death while being trapped in his car. Anyone else notice the alarming amount of gasoline fire crash's lately?

[madmac]

I agree with all the guy's above, the safety in Nascar is appalling from the lack of crews, to the design of the safety gear. One of the reasons I stopped watching.

[Megatron]

I think what sums up how much NASCAR knows or cares is when the local "experts" at Watkins Glen took their sweet time getting to Ryan Newman and by his own account "didn't have a clue as to what they were doing", Mike Helton said on NASCAR 2Day "Were happy the way it is".

I recall Dale Jarrett getting tired of waiting on an ambulance and walking back to the pits while Bret Bodine's care burned halfway down to the ground at Daytona last year. And they are happy with that.

It would almost be funny if it weren't so sad.

[Don Capps]

Originally posted by John B
(please correct me if wrong -- the one I can think of was Kyle Petty being hurt when on a stretcher when they ran over his ponytail......)

Actually, in May 1991 at Talladega, Ernie Irvan and Mark Martin had a coming together and as Kyle Petty slid to a halt sideways trying to miss the incident, Chad Little piled into the Felix Sabantes Mello Yello Pontiac which was sitting boardside on the track. Petty suffered a severely broken leg. As Petty lay trapped in the badly damaged car, one of the members of the rescue crew immediately whipped out a video camera and began recording the goings-on as Kyle was desperate need of medical assistance and the crew looked on. Kyle said he was actually amazed at seeing that video camera and not realizing it belonged to a rescue crew member. Every time I think of that incident, I cringe..... Kyle Petty and I had the same trainer, Andy Clawson, for knee and leg rehab.